Blackie

DS - I have to say both your owl photo and the eagle one are not just worth of being in a calendar, they are of national wildlife photo award winning quality. Absolutely awesome, both of them - but especially the owl. Perfect composition, wonderfully sharp, and the owl is looking straight at you. Add the splash of red from its open mouth and it just becomes jaw-dropping. Well done! I take my hat off to you. As for doing a photo course, I would wholeheartedly agree that they are worth doing. I won a course in Dorset for coming second in a competition organised by my company for its worldwide offices back in 2001, and that helped give me so much more confidence in my photography. And the courage to quit my job! :lol: I'm glad I didn't win that competition, either. The winner got to fly to New York, business class, and stay in the company apartment. Nice...except that he spent the whole five days he was there photographing the company's Manhattan offices and staff - without getting paid for it! I think they just wanted a photographer on the cheap. Great photos there, too, Michael. But they need shrinking by 50%. I only have some moon shots to post this month. I'll put one or two on here later.

The competiton's getting tougher than ever! Some great pictures, apart from the first one of course. But I have to give it to Louby. Very few people would have even thought of taking that picture like that. Me included. But there's something vaguely familiar about it, though... Super, Louby!! :lol: :lol:

I have no idea what your bird is Phil, but you captured it beautifully. I use a 5D and a 100-400L lens myself. A great combination, although the lens is a bit too big to take on most overseas trips. That's a good advert for it, though. PS, Kar - any more puns/innuendos like that and you'll be up before the beak...the :ahem: wise old owl himself, OON. Liked it though.

Hilton - you're meant to vote for five, not six. You might want to pm Shuggee and let him know which five you want, in case all your votes are discounted...

Here's my selection: philb 1 Louby 1 JC 2 Essan 1 Essan 2 Some cracking shots again this month, and a tough choice - as ever. Well done everyone.

Wasn't someone recording them and posting them on here a while back? Did anyone record todays? And why doesn't the BBC put them online on its site? Would have thought that was an obvious thing to do, especially as it is meant to be aimed at farmers - and most of them would be out in the fields in the middle of the day...

Know what you mean about the stiff neck, Russ! I spent the best part of an hour crouching down or kneeling on the patio and squinting into the viewfinder of my 20D. Now, why don't they make the image appear in the screen like they do with the point and shoot models? That would make life much easier to track and centre something like the moon. I'd love to have been able to find a really solid support for last night, with the tripod not extended at all. On reflection it probably would have been quicker and better to have used the Manfrotto head with the trigger release rather than the fiddly carbon fibre one which I use for travel. And certainly a prime lens would have produced pin-sharp results. It's asking a lot of a zoom lens to capture crisp shots of the moon in full shadow using a zoom lens with lots of glass elements, especially stuck on a tripod where it is subject to the wind and vibrations from the shutter. And with exposures of several seconds (I think my fastest shutter speed last night was aout one second at 1600 ISO towards the end). Even using a remote cord won't completely cut out vibrations. Add to that the fact that each time you centred the moon for a shot it would move of-centre inside 15-20 seconds and it's not hard to understand why it was so difficult. Essentially we were all trying to capture an event for which we didn't have the right equipment - especially considering it is probably one of the hardest things you will ever photogaph. Not many subjects I take pictures of are 250,000 miles away, moving like a bat out of hell, at night, in shade and in the middle of winter! I don't know if anyone else experienced this, by the way, but I heard a fox screeching at the moon while it was in totality. Not quite as spine-tingling as if it had been a wolf, but still very eerie. Perhaps it was just practicing for when it applies to become a wolf. :lol: :lol: My wife had to pick up our daughters from work at 1am and she came across 5 foxes on Southend seafront as well. So they were out in force.

See what I mean? You stirred the monster, now! Or was that the Blood Moon last night? We've already had Hemmy howling at the moon in another thread.

I think you'll find the mods are quite strict on when the photos are taken, though...

Lovely shots there, Jurgen. I used a similar combination, with a Canon EOS 20D and EF100-400L lens, giving an effective 580mm at full zoom with the sensor magnification. You might want to look at the thread we had going last night. Quite a few pictures from different people on there as it was happening and just afterwards. This is one of the pages: http://www.netweather.tv/forum/index.php?s...6461&st=153.

Snap! I was abut to write the same thing. And it doesn't matter what camera you have, BG. Taking photos of the moon means you do need specialist kit, but general pictures can be taken on any camera. Even point and shoot ones can produce stunning results. Just look at the quality of the pictures in the monthly competitions. Most are probably taken by people with inexpensive cameras, and the standard is amazing. No doubt you will be posting some soon, too. Good luck and happy snapping, and posting.

I'll drink to that, Russ! :lol: Except, I'd have to have yours as well

Nope, only tracking was by hand, using very poor eyesight! I used my Canon EOS 20D with the 100-400L IS lens I was so rude about on another thread last night! White elephant, I think I called it! :lol: At first I also stuck a 1:4 converter on as well, but it wouldn't autofocus with that and it was too dark to manually focus properly or with any accuracy. So I took it off. And the pics came out pretty sharp. I used a remote cable as well to stop getting any camera shake. And I have a solid carbon fibre tripod, which I kept the top part lowered. Again to cut vibrations, although it meant I had to stoop or kneel on the ground to look through the biewfinder. I kept having to shift it virtually between every shot to track the moon and keep it centred. And I guess I was taking a shot every 30 seconds. Just think what a nice 600m L lens would have produced. :sigh: Only about £5,000. Mine cost over £1,000, and that was bad enough. Anyway, here's a few more towards the end of totality... I stopped after the last one, as it was getting too hard to get the light area and still see anything of the shaded part. PS - I think it was Laura, sorry Wibs, who asked if the moon really was that red. As Paul Sherman siad, yes indeed it was. The colours are exactly as I saw them. I have used the smaller JPEG versions of the RAW images rather than convert the RAW ones, and then to make sure I could get them to a small enough size to post I just emailed them and chose the 1024 size. Quicker than sodding around resizing! But because I kept shifting the camera the exposures have not all come out the same. That is where converting the RAW images would produce more consistent results. PPS - I don't think my man flu/chest infection appreciated bein outside for nearly an hour. Starting to sweat and shiver alternately. PPPS - I started off setting camera at 100 ISO when the moon was very bright, then during totality I gradually wound it up to 1600. As it started coming back out of totality I reduced it back to 800 and finished with 400 I think. Also, I turned the Image Stabiliser (IS) off. It doesn't do anything when the lens is mounted on a tripod. Just need to remember to switch it back on next time I hand-hold it.

OK, now it's letting me upload again. A couple from about 20 minutes ago, full frame and cropped. Plus one just now...

Not letting me upload any piccies

Think I need a faster shuter speed...

--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Paul B @ 3 Mar 2007, 08:56 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Hmmm, could have got closer! But a good picture! I've had a lightning bolt come down near me...about 50m from where I was. Was quite hair raising to say the least!

Nice one rixxy...except it's now March! :lol:

Very well done, Wibs. I see you've gone blue again. Is that in celebration of your hat trick?

My three for February. Sunset over Bowen's Island, near Charleston, South Carolina, Feb 19 Sunset over the Thames Estuary, Feb 28 Starlings wheeling in formation over Southend cliffs at dusk, Feb 28

Love the symmetry of the middle shot, John, and the atmosphere of the other two. Looks like you shot those with a very wide angle lens. Nice.

Hi tbp Welcome to NW. You'll find we're a gentle lot here. Well, some of us anyway! I agree with both your observations. Louby's shot (Louby's a she, by the way - that's her hiding behind the camera in her avatar) is very good but the eye does get drawn to the left because there is no main focal point. Like you, I think Wibs's shot ticks all the right boxes. It sums up what January should be, although most of us rarely see snow like that these days. Yet again, a very high standard this month. The other shots are also excellent. Shame there can only be one winner. Maybe there out to be a Hall of Fame thread on the site as well as the calendar, so not only monthly winners but the other finalists can all be displayed together. Mods?

A very clever, very arty and beautiful shot there Louby. Well done

Chucking it down in South East Essex...with rain It never really settled before it turned to rain. So that's it for another winter I guess. Still, soon be spring and bbq weather

Some great pictures again this month, and very tough to pick just 5. My choice, in random order, is: Wibs 3 Essan 1 Essan 3 rixxxgolf 1 slinky 1